"Oh, fudge, Priscilla, you know perfectly well what Horace Hitchcock is, and you needn't pretend to admire him, for I know better."
"I won't listen to you any longer," cried Priscilla furiously, "slandering my friends." She turned abruptly and crossed the street. The two girls continued on their homeward way with the width of the Terrace between them, each looking steadily ahead, ignoring the other's presence.
Before Amy reached home she was sorry. She saw she had been wrong as well as right. Her whole-hearted championship of Nelson had not necessitated sneering at Horace. Amy realized that Priscilla had good reason to be angry, and resolved on a whole-hearted apology next day.
It was a pity she had not followed up her feeling of penitence by immediate action, for when Horace came that evening he found Priscilla in an unwonted mood. She had dramatized the whole affair to herself. Everyone was unjust to Horace. Even Peggy allowed her childish prejudices to influence her unwarrantedly. But she herself was Horace's friend and she would be loyal to that friendship, cost what it might.
A few minutes after his arrival Horace suggested a walk in the neighboring park, which had been so little "improved" that walking through it was almost like strolling along country lanes. Though the night was warm, most of the populace preferred the movies, and Horace and Priscilla had the park practically to themselves. The night wind sighed languorously through the trees. The air was full of ineffable fragrances.
"Oh, Priscilla," exclaimed Horace suddenly, and caught her hand. It seemed to Priscilla that her heart stood still. There was a note in Horace's voice she had never heard before. She was sure that something wonderful was happening. And the irritating part was that she could not do justice to it, for she kept thinking of something else. She should, she was sure, be entirely absorbed in what Horace was going to say; and right at that moment, she wondered if Ruth and Nelson were sitting on Amy's porch.
"Oh, Priscilla," Horace was murmuring, "Do you not feel as I do, that we have met and loved before? You were mine, Priscilla, when the pyramids were building. You were mine in Babylon. Tell me that you have not forgotten. Tell me that you love me."
It was only about half an hour from that impassioned speech before they were walking home decorously along the lighted streets, but Priscilla had a feeling as if she had been away for months and months. An unbelievable thing had happened. She was engaged. It was understood that the engagement was not to be mentioned at present, not even to Priscilla's father and mother. Horace had said something to the effect that to let outsiders into their secret would bruise the petals of the flower of love, and she had agreed to the postponement of that catastrophe, without asking herself why the flower of love should be so fragile. But the fact remained that she was the second of the quartette to become engaged, and she took a rather foolish satisfaction in the realization. She made up her mind that her former qualms as to her own unattractiveness were without foundation, for otherwise a social favorite like Horace would never have asked her to marry him.
Priscilla's father and mother were on the porch when the young people reached home, and, as it was much too warm to stay indoors, the evening which had contained so thrilling an episode ended rather tamely. Mr. Combs and Horace exchanged ideas on local politics, and Mrs. Combs and Horace expressed themselves on the subject of the weather. Priscilla had nothing to say on either interesting topic. She was trying to realize that some day, instead of saying "Mr. Combs" and "Mrs. Combs," Horace would be addressing her parents as "father" and "mother." This seemed so extraordinary that she was almost inclined to believe that she had dreamed the whole thing, though the significantly tender pressure of Horace's fingers, as he said good-night, assured her to the contrary.
Priscilla slept very poorly that night. Her dreams were troubled. And each time she woke, which was on the average of once an hour, she had a dreadful sense of impending disaster. On each occasion it took her several minutes to convince herself that nothing was wrong, that instead she was a very fortunate and happy girl, singled out of the world of girls by a most unusual young man. And thus reassured, she would drop off to sleep, to start again with troubled dreams, and to go again through the whole program.